SOC206 Week 6 (2010): Youth and Radical Politics

8/9/2019 SOC206 Week 6 (2010): Youth and Radical Politics

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SOC 206: Youth and Popular Culture, Lecture 6, 2010

Dr Colin Salter

http://colin.salter.id.au


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Outline

Introduce punk, straight edge & veganism

Concurrent themes & (potential) issues

Questions to reflect on


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the ultimate authenticity lies in political action...

(Clark 2003)


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Punk

Rejection of mainstream excesses

Embrace DIY

Rebellious & anti-establishment

Multiplicities of meanings.

Clark (2003) Punk had to die so it could live.


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Punk: Attitude (2005)


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The Hard Ons

"It's such a shit stir. I mean, calling a band, The Hard-Ons.When you think about a hard on you think of big machomen with bulging muscles and a big hard on between their

legs...

We're not a macho band. We like taking the piss out ofmacho people.


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Male Centric?

Godmother of Punk

Riot grrrl

Reactionary re-assertionof masculinity (Clark 2004)

image source: wikimedia commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Patti_Smith_performing_at_TIM_Festival,_Marina_da_Gloria,_Rio_De_Janeiro_(4).jpg


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Straight Edge

image source: Body Modification Ezine http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A90731/high/i3ee-me-in-india.jpg

A reaction to the hedonism and self-destructionseen in punk:a counter-culture to the counter-culture

Central Tenet is the refrain from drug use.

Multiplicities of meanings.

The sex question...


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National Geographic (2007): Inside Straight Edge


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Straight Edge

The movements core values reflect [a] curious blend ofmiddle class conservative and progressive influences.(Haenfler 2007: 10).


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I guess the movement had sort of started, but in my mind Iwasnt interested in it being a movement.

It ran conversely to my initial idea that it was a concert ofindividuals, as opposed to a movement.

text source: Ian Mackaye, reproduced in Haenfler (2007)

Were just a Minor Threat


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Straight Edge trends

Old School

Youth Crew

Posicore

The militant or hardline turn(New School or Metalcore)

image source: Cybele Malonowskis Flckr photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/cybele_malinowski/2282705579/audio: excerpt from Gomorrahs Seas Ends, Earth Crisis, Gomorrahs Seas Ends, 1996


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...all must be given the same right to live free fromenslavement, torture, and pain. To separate and give this right

only to an animal in a vivisectors lab or a slaughterhouseand not to a growing fetus is inconsistent.

CD liner notes (behind disc). Earth Crisis, All Out War, 1992

Earth Crisis


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By oppressing innocent life you've lost your rights so nowyour end is justified. There will be no compromise, no more

negotiating. If you refuse to change, then you're guilty andmust be destroyed.Lyrics, Stand by, Earth Crisis, All Out War, 1992

Earth Crisis


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firestorm to purify the bane that society drowns in. No

mercy, no exceptions, a declaration of total war.

Earth Crisis

Lyrics, Firestorm, Earth Crisis, Firestorm, 1993


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Male Centric?

The Female Edge

Straight Edge Sisterhoodhttp://www.xsisterhoodx.com/

Reactionary re-assertionof masculinity?

image: Eva Genie, Gather http://www.myspace.com/gatheraudio: excerpt from Glimpses of Hope, Gahter, Beyond the Ruins, 2007.


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Hardcore Pit, Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXAlIdTDtRM


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We call people on their shit and hold them accountable for

what they do.

Earth Crisis

Dennis Merrick, Earth Crisis, in Gollner (2000)


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Propagandhi

Tell you what Ill call you on your shit, PLEASE CALL ME

ON MINE. Then we can grow together and make this shit-hole planet better in time.Lyrics, Apparently, Im A P.C. Fascist, Propaghandi, Less Talk, More Rock, 1999


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Propagandhi

Is this all there is? Maybe we really have nothing to say.Maybe we truly are just shallow and lame and were all justwaiting for the end, the spectacle, or some kind ofcatastrophe to bring us back to earth to stun our evernodding heads.

Lyrics, Life at Disconnect, Propaghandi, Potemkin City Limits, 2005


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Veganism

text source: The Vegan Society (UK) http://www.vegansociety.com/about/who-we-are.aspx

Veganism is a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far

as possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of,and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing and any otherpurpose.


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Earthlings

Considered the most persuasive documentary ever made.

Nicknamed the Vegan maker for its sensitive footage shot at

animal shelters, pet stores, puppy mills, factory farms,slaughterhouses, the leather and fur trades, sporting events, circusesand research labs.


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Veganism

Critique of the mainstream... an enactment

of punk (Clark 2004: 25)

Multiplicities of meanings?

Lifestyle or movement v identity politics?


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Veganism

Non-punk vegans, in contrast, constructedidiosyncratic, personal definitions of veganism.

In doing so, they maintained the vegan identity...

Cherry (2006:160)


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Individual and collective meanings of identity

Individual and collective meanings of resistance

multiplicities of transgression

Embedded in social processes?

Closing reflections


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Movements?

Scenes?

Either/neither?

Both?

Closing reflections

image: http://www.dragonsofasshat.org/images/funny/scenester.jpg


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Further ReadingElizabeth Cherry (2006), Veganism as a Cultural Movement: A Relational Approach,

Social Movement Studies, vol. 5, no. 2: 155-170.

Dylan Clark (2003), The Death and Life of Punk, the Last Subculture, in DavidMuggleton & Rupert Weinzierl (ed.), The Post-Subcultures Reader, Berg, NY.

Dylan Clark (2004), The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine, Ethnologyvol. 43, no. 1:19-31.

Earthlings (2008), film, Nation Earth.

Adam Gollner (2000), Drug-free politic: Dennis Merrick of Earth Crisis on his

unhippie ways,Montreal Mirror, January 27.

Ross Haenfler (2007), Straight Edge: Clean living youth, hardcore punk and social change ,Rutgers University Press, NJ.


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Further Readingunknown, Hardcore Pit, Youtube, accessed 31 March 2010.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXAlIdTDtRM

Lauraine Leblanc (1999), Pretty in Punk: Girls gender resistance in a boys subculture ,Rutgers University Press, NJ

Brittany Menodza (2008), Women in Hardcore...according to Miles Away, SovereignStrength, and Blood Stands Still,xsisterhoodx, accessed 31 March 2010.http://www.xsisterhoodx.com/feminism/women-in-hardcore...according-to-miles-away-sovereign-strength-and-

blood-stands-still.html

David Muggleton & Rupert Weinzierl, Ed. (2003) The Post-Subcultures Reader, Berg, NY.

Propagandhi Official website.

http://propagandhi.com

Punk Attitude (2005), film, Capitol Entertainment.


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Further Readingunknown, Punk Documentary 1976 (Part 1), Youtube, accessed 31 March 2010.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Pdv4EpYfk

Maureen C. Wyse (2005), What are we fighting for? 90s vegan hardcoreback with

a vengeance, Satya, accessed 31 March 2010.http://www.satyamag.com/may05/wyse.html

Songs featured:Land: Horses/Land of a Thousand Dances/La Mer (De), by Patti Smith, from Horses,1975

Anarchy in the UK, by the Sex Pistols, from Never Mind the Bollocks, Heres the SexPistols, 1977

Gomorrahs Seas Ends, by Earth Crisis, from Gomorrahs Seas Ends, 1996

Glimpses of Hope, by Gather, from Beyond the Ruins, 2007.

Documents

SOC206 Week 6 (2010): Youth and Radical Politics